On August 26^th my parents will celebrate their 50^th wedding anniversary. We are going to have a special celebration on the 25^th. I perhaps will tell you a bit about the celebration at another time. (We don’t want to tip our hand on things.) But I want to share a few words about Jonathan and Carolyn Taylor. 

Words that describe mom and dad: faithful, dependable, solid, honest, hard working, servants, giving, hospitable, considerate, patient, long suffering, loving. These don’t do the job, but it’s a start. I remember as a child thinking mom was pretty enough to be on T.V. I was proud when my parents came to my 5^th grade class for a visit. I remember when I was 13 thinking that dad was so disciplined that he was almost super human.  

Over the years, they shared great victories and suffered some crushing defeats. Their strength and consistency is staggering. They remind me of Rocky Balboa from the first Rocky movie. Apollo Creed couldn’t believe that Rocky kept getting up and coming back for more. Every time that life or the enemy knocked them down and gloated just a little, they climbed back up off the mat, looked it dead in the eye and motioned with weary but resolute gloves, “Come on back, you aint so bad.”  

While many people didn’t have great parents, we did. No, - they would be the first to say they were far from perfect. No such thing as perfect parents and in our family there were no perfect kids (shocking I know). But hear this; Great parents are not those who don’t make mistakes, great parents are those who love through mistakes and keeping getting up to love, and try and push toward better days. 

I’m most proud of mom and dad for their uncompromising commitment to life. I met with dad for two hours on Wednesday of this week. He is still looking to the future, still dreaming of what he could do or could become. He told me that the essence of his life is, not was, the force of truth. He wants to discover and walk in whatever truth is in the things of God and he isn’t dissuaded by anything. Mom is less philosophical, but her commitment to life can be seen in her heart toward our family.  

This is the noble heart of my mom and dad. They simply love God, their family and life together too much to give in or give up. How do you make it through 50 years of life in this world? By the grace of God and the love of all that is good, you keep getting up, look it dead in the eye and motion with sometimes weary but resolute gloves, “Come on back, you aint so bad.” 

telemicus out

Who in their right mind would allow these two to move out and live on their own without adult supervision and parental guidance? Well to me this is who they are . . . and yet, it’s not who they are at all. They don’t really require adult supervision anymore and they will always have parental guidance when they need and are wise enough to seek it. 

Hope is the person in many ways that I wish I could have been. She is confident of who she is. She enjoys being Hope all the time. She thinks and lives like a teenager. I like that about her. She is not trapped in trying to be a grown up too early. 

When I was 18, I left home for the first time in my life. I moved 700 miles away. That early February morning I was sitting in my 1970 Chevy Vega with all my belongings jammed in from front to back. Dad tapped on the window and I rolled it down. He bent down, looked at me, and said one sentence that is forever burned in my memory. . .  

“Michael you’ve learned a lot of things from me over the past 18 years. I think its time for you to forget a lot of them.” 

I never really understood this comment completely till this week. Both of our little girls moved out of the house. While their journey of 7 miles is not the same as mine of 700, it’s a burden on the heart. This week, their mom and I have come to understand what dad said to me in 1978 when I left home. 

In the course of their lives, they learned a lot from us that wasn’t good. I want them to know that it’s a great thing to take all that they saw in us that is good in us and imitate that. We’ve tried to teach what is right and wrong. We’ve tried to provide well and be good parents. But we taught them a lot of things that I hope they forget. They know the list already.  

The Old Book says, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it” (Proverbs 22:6). This we have tried to do. They may not always do what we want or choose what we think they should, but they know The Way and when those days come that the wheels fall off, we’re only 7 miles away. 

telemicus out

300 is a movie about the ancient Battle of Thermopylae. Around 480 years B.C. Xerxes was trying to take over the world for his own glory and that of Persia. He had an army, estimates vary, but it was between 250,000 and 1.5 million. This awesome force intended to take Greece as it had all other nations. However, they did not know the heart of Sparta. 

According to Spartan law, a King could not go to war without the consent of the “counsel,” a group of corrupt prophets who handed out edicts and manipulated the people. They decreed that Sparta must not go to war with the Persians, but rather should observe one of their traditional holidays. King Leonidas knew that if they did not go out to face the Persians there would be no Sparta remaining after they passed. The King observed a higher law and led a small group of men to defend Sparta at Thermopylae. 

In I Samuel 14, after Jonathan confronted the Philistine outpost and the Lord gave Israel a great victory over their army, he rejoined his men as they pursued the enemy. Jonathan was not aware that in his absence his father Saul had bound the entire army with an oath that they should not eat food “before I have avenged myself on my enemies!” When they entered a wood, they found honey on the ground. “…so he reached out the end of the staff that was in his hand and dipped it into the honeycomb. He raised his hand to his mouth, and his eyes brightened” (1 Samuel 14:27).  

Jonathan was spiritually sensitive. He knew as soon as the honey touched his lips that something had happened on the spiritual plain. His sensitivity and awareness led him to understand that his father’s pride had hindered the men and their fight. He was not in rebellion to his father the King; he was walking as a man who was free. Free from oaths he did not take, free from fear, free from complacency and free from timidity. Brennan Manning wrote, “We should live so free that our very existence is an act of rebellion.”  

There is today a monument at the sight of the Battle of Thermopylae. The monument in English says,

“Go tell the Spartans, passerby,
That here, by Spartan law, we lie.” 

Spartan law decreed, No surrender! King Leonidas knew what it meant to be compelled by a higher law, as did Jonathan. The law of defending Sparta to the death was higher than the law of keeping a celebration. The 300 Spartans did not defeat the Persians, but their heroic sacrifice dealt them a serious wound and led to their defeat. The “royal law” (James 2:8) is higher than the traditions and rules that we often observe so stringently. It is spiritual sensitivity and wisdom that tells us when the law of love requires us to stand alone if need be in following Christ. 

telemicus out